[from the expedition's press release dated August 15, 2019] From July 31st to August 8th, 2019 Graham Zimmerman, Steve Swenson, Chris Wright and Mark Richey made the first ascent of Link Sar (7041m) in the Central Pakistani Karakoram via its 3400m Southeast Face.

Photo: Matteo Della Bordella

Having been the object of at least nine expeditions, the first

ascent of this peak has been a highly sought-after prize for the climbing community. The

team is calling their route the Southeast Face (M6+ WI4 90°, 2300m), but the grade does a

poor job of portraying the challenge of this route that Karakoram veteran Swenson calls

“one of the most complex and difficult routes I have ever climbed.”

Swenson originally attempted the route in 2001 with George Lowe, Joe Terrevecia, Steve

Larson, Andy Tuthill and Eric Winkleman. It was an amazing opportunity for the team since

the face lies very near the contested border between Pakistan and India (known as the

actual ground position line or AGPL), and the eastern aspects of the mountain had not been

permitted since the mid 1970’s when a Japanese team made the first attempts to reach the

summit. Despite the fact that the team did not make it very high on the peak, it inspired

Swenson to return, and he made repeated attempts over the following decade to get

another permit for the peak but was denied.

Over the ensuing years, a number of attempts were made on the peak’s western aspect

via the Charakusa Valley.

In 2015, Swenson and Zimmerman, along with Scott Bennett made the first ascent of

nearby Changi Tower (6500m) via its North Ridge (M6 5.10 A2, 1200m) and from its summit

caught an excellent view of the massive southeast face, supplying better information about

the best way to climb the route and further spurring motivations to attempt the mountain.

In 2017, it looked like the area was once again opening to climbing, and Swenson and

Zimmerman were finally given a permit to access Link Sar’s southeast face. They also

invited Wright on the expedition as he and Zimmerman had formed a strong partnership in

the mountains of Alaska. During this two and half month expedition, the team experienced

atrocious weather, and after multiple attempts reached only 5900m. Despite the failure to

climb the peak that season, the team made a myriad of observations of the face's immense

complexities, providing them with the information that they needed to make an ascent that

was safe from the many objective hazards that litter the wall.

This year, the three climbers, alongside Mark Richey, with whom Steve won a Piolet d’Or

(the equivalent of a gold medal in alpinism) in 2012, returned to the southeast Face. They

departed their homes in the United States on June 4th.

The approach to the peak is made via the Kondus Valley and then up the Kaberi Glacier.

Since it is in the militarized area near the AGPL, there is a road that runs adjacent to the

glacier and up to the location of the team's basecamp where they arrived on June 10th. The

elevation of this basecamp was 3600m.

From their past experience, they knew one of the primary cruxes of the route was

acclimatization. The Kaberi valley is one of the deepest in the Karakoram and its walls are

precipitously steep. On most 7000m peaks, a nearby easier 6000m peak would be used to

acclimatize before starting on the primary objective, but no such peak exists in the Kaberi,

so the team was forced to use the lower portions of their route on the SE face for

acclimatization. To help with this, they set up an advanced basecamp at top of the

meadows that make up the bottom 1100m of the face. In order to do this, they hired 5 local

porters for whom they fixed a network of ropes on a series of easy, but exposed, low

5th class slabs to ensure their safety while making the ascent to ABC.

The team had ABC established by July 4th, but at this point were forced to wait for the

conditions on the mountain to improve. The 2018-19 winter in the Karakoram was one of the

snowiest on record, making the mountain very dangerous, a fact that was emphasized by a

size 3 wet slab avalanche that was observed low on the mountain from ABC on July 7th.

Thankfully, the weather in early to mid-July was excellent and allowed for conditions to

improve considerably at which point the team was able to climb to 6000m on the peak and

consider themselves sufficiently acclimatized to attempt the route.

On the morning of July 31st, the team started their alpine style attempt on the route from

advanced basecamp at 7:30am (the disparity between the 3400m face and the 2300m

‘route’ come from the fact that they started from ABC). During the cool morning hours, they

climbed steep snow and glacial terrain to a camp at 5100m where they spent the afternoon

resting before launching on the lower crux of the route in the early evening.

Climbing at night was a necessity due to the intense heat at that altitude on the